Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Skrillex's 'Make It Bun Dem'

The song I have chosen as an idea for our music video is Skrillex's 'Make It Bun Dem' featuring Damian 'Jr. Gong' Marley. The music video (left) was first released on September 6th 2012 via Skrillex's channel and the audio came out on April 16th 2012. The music video lasts for 3 minutes and 38 seconds. The genre to this particular music video is a mix between reggae and dub step known as reggae step, which presents a very funky tone and allows two things completely different from each other to come together. As the music video is 3 minutes and 38 seconds, the music is at quite a fast pace because it is dubstep but it tends to vary when the reggae comes into the mix. The lyrics came from Damian Marley's single "Welcome to Jam Rock"  


This song is a narrative story. The music video (above) explains the story of an elderly Native american and his son who are about to get evicted from their house by US police. So the man conducts a smudging ritual in which he smudged red paint over his son and handed him a roach. The son returns outside and a golden eagle bursts from his chest and surrounds him. As the police are about to knock on their door, the chief's henchmen give him the middle finger and leaves him to do the evacuation himself. The door appeared to be locked and so he went round the back door and found the son with the eagle (pictured on the music video above) standing in the middle looking at the chief, and then the eagle suddenly attacked the police chief and in the final shot of the official music video shows the father surrounded by three canines with no sign of what happened to the chief or the son.

With all of the evidence I have from the audio soundtrack, the music video and genius.com, I'd reckon that the overall meaning of the song would represent that the artists likes to create havoc and playing music, resulting in everyone enjoying themselves, no matter what the police or the government thinks. Another meaning, in contrast with the other meaning would be to always believe in your gods and in so you would have every success you could have.

There are many impressions that make me want to describe what the song means to me. This particular song, when I first heard it, almost made me want to dance along to.

With all of the effects and people used in this particular video, I think we will be unable to copy this same music video because it would be way too complicate to make. So on my storyboard, I have come up with an alternate video that is similar to the official music video but contains less people and has more meaning.



Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Cadbury's Radio Advert Treatment

Cadbury's Dairy Milk

The name of my first radio advert is Cadbury's Dairy Milk. This is a national corporation that is mainly based in the United Kingdom, currently manufactured by Cadbury's. The target audience for most of their radio and television adverts are children and maybe even teenagers, so I think the age range for their adverts would be 11 - 16 year olds. These particular adverts did not have a name in to which radio station they came from, but I would say with the way they present their adverts, I would say that this advert would be broadcasted on many popular radio stations, for example Heart FM and Capital FM, because as this radio station appeals more to the age audience of the radio advert, the advert would definitely suit these radio stations. These adverts are selling a product made by Cadbury's and by telling how much views these adverts got, (60,000 and 400,000 views), it got very popular. The actor behind my advert would be presented in a very comical fashion, with a very comical voice. The target audience regarding gender and interests would be male of an early age, such as 9 or 10, because they could understand what the advert is about, as it would be in a very funny fashion. This company was first formed in 1905 when they first released their first ever Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar, and now they are celebrating next year their 110th anniversary where they are releasing their first model chocolate bar design, on every Cadbury's Dairy Milk bar.  

                                                                               

Thursday, 20 November 2014

Styles, Conventions and Techniques (Assignment - Task 2)

A)

Lyric Interpretation: The Visuals of the Music Video will interpret the lyrics of the song

Extending or Consolidating Song's Meaning: Music Video does not interpret the lyrics, instead adds meaning or different content to the song

Focus on Performer: Focus is on the band or artist, this is shown by loads of close ups and mid shots of the artist or band

Lighting for Mood: Lighting can create a happy atmosphere or a dark and more sinister atmosphere

Pace of Cuts: Other known as 'Cutting to the Beat', most music videos attempt to match the beat of the music

B)

1) Special Effects - Kanye West ft. Jamie Foxx (Gold Digger)
2) Multi-Image - Example ('Kickstarts')
3) Cutting to the Beat - Lady Gaga (Applause)
4) An artist miming or lip-syncing - Justin Bieber ft. Nicky Minaj (Beauty and a Beat)
5) Animation - MGMT (Kids)
6) Reference to or Includes another artist - Tinchy Stryder (Wiley & Chew Fu 'Take That')
                                                                   Elvis Presley (Lily Allen 'Air Balloon')

C)

Narrative: The Music Video tells a story - MAGIC! (Rude)

Impressionist: The Music Video is more about the mood and atmosphere, some cutaways and imagery - Example (Changed The Way You Kissed Me)

Interpretative: The lyrics is interpreted in a visual way - Rebecca Black (Friday)

Surrealist: The Music Video has weird imagery that is unconnected with the song - Lady Gaga (Applause)

Pastiche/Homage: Tribute to another artist's work - Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake (Love Never Felt So Good)

As-Live: The Music Video is filmed live at a gig - The Script (Superheroes)
                               

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Cancer Research UK Radio Advert Script

Script:
Do you know that every 2 minutes, a man or woman are told that they have cancer. Imagine if it was you. How would you react? How would you tell your parents? Who could you run to? You could do something about it.

SFX - Fireworks

VO - Jolly, happy

Join us at our brand new event,

SFX - Echo
Shine

to help raise awareness to those who are cancer sufferers. For more, check out our website www. cancer research uk . org to try and make a difference.

Music = Sad

Imagine if it was you.

SFX - Disc Scratch

VO - Shout
Join us to Shine!!! Cancer Research UK. We will beat cancer sooner.

Brand/Charity: Cancer Research UK

Name of Advert: SHINE

Style of Advert: Uses persuasive techniques to help young people come to this particular event created by Cancer Research UK. Very formal in the way of what is going to happen and what website to get more information of the event. Very simple advert so that teenagers and young children can know what is going on and what is going to happen

Timing of Advert: This advert would last for 30 seconds as it is quite a simple advert to make and radio adverts are normally 30 seconds long.

Cancer Research UK Radio Advert Treatment


The name of my charity is Cancer Research UK. It is an awareness charity and an organisation set up to provide research to beat cancer. In a radio advert I looked up for this particular charity, there was an event based on the evening of the 24th September called 'Shine', which explains people taking to the streets to help beat cancer. The purposes of advertisement for each advert for Cancer Research UK is to raise awareness of the issue that many people get affected by cancer and it is time to do something about it, they always seem to say that with the continued research they do, they will beat cancer sooner. In this particular advert, there are a lot of persuasive techniques to take a note of. First of all, the voice artist tells the audience about the walking marathon that is going to happen to help raise awareness to tell other people about cancer awareness. This is a very simple advert as the voice over artist tells about what event is going to happen and for what cause and very straight forward to understand. This is a very serious advert as it talks about a very serious and personal issue that if there was humour in it, some people might be offended by this, although this particular advert tries to find the happier side by organising an event that people can take part in to raise awareness and to share their stories with other cancer sufferers. The target audience for this particular advert would appeal more to teenagers and young adults, age range probably around 16 to 25. This particular advert does have a unique selling point as it is explaining an event created by Cancer Research UK to help young adults get involved with promoting events for this particular charity.

Monday, 10 November 2014

Production Facilities (Task 1)

Task 1 - Production Facilities
  • Explain production facilities that are needed
  • Include both in-house production outsourced production
  • Describe types of spaces and equipment that are needed 
  • Explain why they are used i.e. voice booth 
  • Describe use of production music libraries and pre-recorded sound effects
There are a lot of production facilities that are needed in a radio commercial process.

First of all, you would need two spaces, one involving a live lounge or a voice booth, where the actors or the voice artists stand and say the script of the commercial and one for the sound engineers and presenters, i.e. an editing workstation, so that they could edit and put in music and sound effects for their commercials. The editing workstation needs to be quite big spaces for the sound engineers so they could have their computers and their mixing desks so that they could edit and put in music for the commercial. However, the live lounge or the voice booth, is needed to be quite small so that they could only hear the actor or the voice artists voice and no other sound because if it was a rather large room, then more sound might have been heard and could interrupt the voice artist and the whole commercial process because they might have to repeat the whole advert again, so that is why it is needed to be quite a small room.

Secondly, there would need to be an ideal location that the radio commercial could be broadcasted more clearly, so I would recommend somewhere near the middle of London, for example Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus, where more famous UK radio stations are, like Heart FM and Capital FM, as their radio stations are broadcasted very clearly because there the satellites and transmitters have a clearer signal to broadcast to London and maybe even nationwide.

Thirdly, you would need good soundproofing walls. Soundproofing walls are an excellent way to trap out sound for any neighbours to hear or to trap out sound coming in to the recording booth. Like I said, soundproofing walls would be ideal for voice booths to trap out any excess sound from the outside to interfere with the voice artist saying his lines for the radio commercial and could also mess up the whole radio commercial process as they would have to record the advert again.

This picture would be ideal rooms to have when it comes towards making a radio commercial. In this picture, we see  the editing workstation that the sound engineer uses is larger than the voice booth because the voice booth needs to be quite small in the way that less sound would able to be heard except the voice artist who is talking into the microphone and the sound engineer has a larger room because they have more equipment involving 3 computers to help with editing and putting in sound libraries to make it a better advert. You could also see that in the sound engineer's room, there is 2 microphones so that he or she could communicate with the voice over artist telling them to either repeat the advert again or to stop the advert there.

Radio Production facilities

Lastly, you would need appropriate software for the sound engineers to use when it comes to the recording and the adding in of the sound effects. For this, I would choose either Logic Pro or Reaper. Logic Pro is a very good source to use because there are some sound libraries already there to use. Sound libraries are otherwise known as sound effects and the background music that are normally used behind the voice artist's voice to add atmosphere and mood to the advert, for example audience clapping or a DJ scratch. Reaper is another good source to use because it is very straight forward to use and it is not difficult to download sound libraries to add to the commercial.

Outsourced production involves giving your recording to another person, for example a sound engineer or a voice artist to add on sound effects and background music or to add on voice in the background. Outsourced production may also involve you creating a script and giving it to sound engineers to create the whole advert involving background music and voice overs as well

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

Artist Presentation (Assignment - Task 1)

These are the types of styles, conventions and techniques that are featured in music videos

Styles:
Interpretative: interprets lyrics in a visual way
Narrative: video tells the story
Impressionist: more about mood and atmosphere, loads of cutaways and imagery
Surrealist: weird imagery, unconnected with song, videos for instrumentals
Pastiche/Homage: tribute to another person's work
Parody: mocking another person's work

Conventions:
Lyric interpretation: the visuals of the video will interpret the lyrics of the song
Extending or consolidating song's meaning: music video does not interpret the lyrics, but adds content and meaning to the song
Focus on performer: focus on the artist or band, including loads of close ups and mid shots
Lighting for mood: Lighting can create a happy atmosphere or a dark intensive mood

Techniques:
Cutting to the beat: Not every shot will sync to the beat, but most videos attempt to match the beat of the music
Miming and lip syncing: All artists featured in the video do this
Use of special effects, such as the green screen: to add atmosphere or content to the video
Multimage: More than one image onscreen

The artist I have chosen is EXAMPLE
The songs I have chosen from Example to analyse are:

Changed The Way You Kissed Me

Won't Go Quietly

Kickstarts

Changed The Way You Kissed Me



This video was first released on 21st of April 2011 and lasts for 3 minutes 14 seconds. This particular video contains real fans that came to one of his gigs in a Ministry of Sound club in London. I decided to choose this video because this video really appealed to me for many reasons. First of all, the type of cinematography really stood out to me as there was no colour in the video except black and white, which presented more of a dark and low key atmosphere, although this is quite a lively and more happy song. This particular music video has a more impressionist style to it as the video mainly resolves around the mood and atmosphere, and there is loads of cutaways to the fans and then back ton the artist and so on. This particular music video does not interpret the lyrics, in the way that he talks about a loved one maybe cheating on him, so there is no sign of a woman, just him and some fans dancing to this particular song. There are some shots that do cut to the beat which is very effective because a scene cuts to another scene on a certain lyric. The artist, Example, does not lip-sync in this video as this was filmed at a live gig when he had sung all of the words. There are a lot of close ups on the artist, for example on 2:20 we see a full head shot of him maybe after the gig sweating and looking directly in the camera looking quite angry with the black and white in the background.

Won't Go Quietly



This video was first released on 11th December 2009 and lasts for 3 minutes 52 seconds. This particular video portrays Example (the artist) as a DJ rapping in front from loads of people who are dancing to his music. This video really appealed out to me because the video is interpretative which means that the artist interprets the lyrics in a visual way. He does this by portraying a woman who is in love with him and went to one of his gigs. At 1:10, she realises that too many people are there at the concert and at 1:17 she starts to create trouble by pushing people about and she starts to get looks from other people. Near to the end, she wants to get out of the concert but can't find a way out as other people start pushing her, in the end she screams out loud and then suddenly we get a sudden portrayal of her waking up from the dream and as she laid back down, the artist was sleeping beside her. This is also a narrative video as well as an interpretative video. Compared to his other video, Changed The Way You Kissed Me, the lighting is a lot brighter to portray who they are, for example the fans were dressed in very fancy outfits and loads of eye make-up. As this was filmed at a gig, the focus for everyone including the audience watching at home would be the artist, Example. Not all of the shots in the video cut to the beat at all which might have confused the audience seeing various different shots not going to the beat. There is no special effects, such as the green screen, as the gig and the bedroom scenes were all filmed in buildings. In contrast, I actually think that the artist was lip-syncing throughout the video as all artists featured in the video seem to do this.

Kickstarts


This music video was first released on the 29th April 2010 and lasts for 3 minutes 5 seconds. This is the only song I have chosen that does not contain a live audience in front of one of his 'gigs'. This is a very interpretative video as the artist (Example) interprets the lyrics in a very visual way, as it shows him in the video and her 'girlfriend' acting in a very happy relationship and are very much in love. The atmosphere from the video I saw, it showed a very positive atmosphere which gives the impression that this is a happy song as all of the actors and the artist seem to be smiling throughout the whole video. This particular song does consolidate and extend the song's meaning in the way that he does add meaning to the song as well as interpreting the song. He gives out meaning for couples to love each other as his song is called 'Kickstarts' meaning 'The Love KICKSTARTS Again' also meaning couples can 're-start' their relationship again. The focus on the performer, most of the time, is on the artist and his girlfriend, but there are shots in the video where there are different loving couples to show that they are not the only couple that are madly in love with each other. This is presented with loads of close-ups on the artist's face, for example on 1:26 to 1:30 we see a close-up of the artist's face as he sings the songs. The artist also uses multi-images which means that there is more than one image onscreen. The artist uses this particular technique for most of the video for many reasons. One use of multi-image is to show the different couples that are showed in the same situation as the artist and his girlfriend. Another use of multi-image in this particular video is to show a particular scene in the video where he is with his girlfriend and another image showing a close up of his face without his girlfriend. This could show him desperately wanting his girlfriend back as the other image is showing them happily together again. This particular example was shown from 1:30 to 1:34. An image to show the separation between the two and the portrayal of the artist alone was shown on 1:53 and 2:00.

Monday, 3 November 2014

Making of Radio Commercial for Plymouth City Market

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTlFGZNdK8M - Making of Radio Commercial for Plymouth City Market

Questions

1. What were the roles of the two people in the video?

The man appeared to be a sound engineer and the woman appeared to be a voice over artist. A sound engineer oversees and direct the work of a news team in a radio studio, in this case, this was a radio artist. A voice over artist speaks about the advert in different tones and voices.

2. What considerations does the voice over artist have to make before recording?

The voice artist does have some considerations over the type of tone she could use for this advert, in this case, she talks about if she should use a happy or serious tone. She also has considerations over what the message of the advert is about, in this case, she says that this advert is illustrating '£1 parking for 1 hour'. Some other considerations for her would also be what type of music will be in the background when she is speaking as well.

3. What studio equipment was shown?

In this radio advert, we see that the sound engineer has 2 computers and 1 television to help him with editing and to see the voice over artist when they are communicating with each other. He also has 2 mixing desks to mix up the advert and to turn up and down the volume. We also can see that the sound engineer has 4 speakers to listen back to the the voice over artist's voice and the advert in general. He also has software on his computer that helps him to edit and to add in music to the advert. The voice over artist has headphones so that she can listen back on the advert and to listen back on her voice to see if she can make her voice more clearer, and also to help communicate with the sound engineer. She also speaks into a condenser microphone so that she could talk into and to record her voice. Lastly, we could see that there is a mic live indicator to tell her when her mic is live or not, and to tell when to stop and take again.

4. What processes were shown to complete the radio commercial?

5. How might a music library have played a part in the process?

Complete this by Monday 10th November. Do this as Home-Learning!

Roles in a Radio Studio (Task 2)

What are the roles in a typical radio studio?


  • Radio Producer - creates content and manages the whole radio production process
  • Presenter/Host - voice of the radio station 
  • Sound Engineer - technician that deals with the 'acoustics' of a broadcast
  • Radio Broadcast Journalists - provide research and presents news stories to audiences
  • Studio Manager - looks after the radio station
  • Radio Marketing Executive - raises brand awareness of the radio station
  • Radio Commercial Producer - creates radio adverts and promotions for the radio station to broadcast them
  • Radio Broadcast Assistant - offers support to radio producers
  • Public Relations Officer - looks after an organisation's image and reputation
  • Marketing Executive - promote their employer's products or services. Raises brand awareness 
Radio Commercials Producer (Creative Producer) creates radio advertising and station promotions for radio stations. To do this particular role, you need to have a strong interest in advertising and a high-level knowledge of creating a recording on a computer. You would also need to be a creative person in the way of creating original ideas to make for a radio commercial. They are also in charge of putting in the music and generating sound libraries to be put in to the radio commercial. 

Recording Engineer (Studio Sound Engineer) make high quality recordings of music and audio that is urgently needed for the radio commercial process. People would need a good sense of hearing and need a knowledge of timing and pitch if they would want to work this job. There is many equipment that is needed for this job. First of all, you would need a computer to operate the recordings and to add in sound libraries to the radio advert. You would also need to have to supply a condensor microphones to record audio from the voice over artists in a very clear voice.

Radio Copywriter writes scripts for the radio commercial. This role is quite difficult to do as it requires to have a deep understanding about how people listen to radio commercials and react to them. It requires an understanding of what makes an attention grabbing, in other words really good, radio advert. Radio copywriters normally have a backround in the radio business so not an ideal job to start off with if you have just started in the radio business. They also tend to oversee voice-talent so they are also a bit like an agent as well as a script writer. 

Voiceover Artists (Actor) interprets other people's words and brings the script to life. In this particular role, actors would need to focus on the voice of the characters to speak into the microphone and to bring their voice to life in the radio commercial. For this role, people would need to be able to learn lines at very short notice and to perform them very clearly in the microphone so that the sound engineer can listen to every word the actor is saying.